President Uhuru Kenyatta will today lead the world in torching 120 tonnes of ivory at Nairobi National Park.
But even before he sets ablaze the cache of ivory, Right Activist Boniface Mwangi was quick to remind him the ‘cheap PR’ will do nothing to save endangered jumbos and rhinos.
Boniface reminded Uhuru his family was involved in poaching and illegal trade of ivory in 1970s and he called on the Kenyattas to use the money they got from ivory trade to set up an elephant endowment fund to preserve the few remaining elephants.
Below is what Boniface wrote full text:
“Very possibly by 2025, these magnificent creatures will be completely extinct,” –President Uhuru Kenyatta
History repeats itself. Tomorrow President Uhuru will set fire to more than 100 tonnes of ivory. Two Presidents before him, Moi and Kibaki, have done the same, a “fake” public gesture to show their governments’ commitment to fight elephant killings. What President Uhuru will not say, is that not a single person has ever been convicted for ivory possession in Kenya. Ivory is confiscated, a few people get arrested, arraigned in court but no one has ever been convicted to date.
In 20 years elephants will be extinct in Kenya if we don’t stop the poaching.We know the poachers who shoot the elephants are just foot soldiers and the containers confiscated at the ports belong to powerful people in government and in the elephant killing business. The people shipping ivory out of Kenya aren’t peasants but powerful people in and out of government.
Journalist Dennis Onsarigo, did an investigative story in 2014 that revealed President Uhuru’s government was aware of the identities of the top 11 poaching kingpins and was protecting them from prosecution.
Since 1989, Kenya periodically destroys ivory without convicting persons implicated in ivory trafficking. So, as the President light’s that fire to ‘destroy’ the ivory, can he go after those benefiting from the poaching business? In Kenya elephants don’t die, they are poached.
Stop the poaching!
If the government does not act urgently before the remaining elephants are killed, my children’s children may never get a chance to see an elephant in the wild. There will be no rhino’s for sure.
PS: It would be nice for the Kenyatta Family to set up an elephant endowment fund. It’s a historical fact that the president’s family played a role in the poaching and smuggling that almost wiped out elephants and Colobus monkeys from the face of Kenya.
Immediately after the 1974 elections, the Kenyatta family was linked to illegal ivory trade, which was earning the Kenyatta family and other close relatives $10 million (equivalent to about Sh100 million today) per year, as the country’s 120,000 elephants were killed at an annual rate of 20,000! – Source Charles Hornsby in his book, Kenya: A History Since Independence (1963-2011)
It would be a good gesture to use some of the money they earned from the trade to preserve the few remaining elephants and rhinos.
